HR: 0800h
AN: H11B-1261 [Abstracts]
TI: A Strategy for a Global In-Situ Soil Moisture Network
AU: * van Oevelen, p J
EM: Peter.vanOevelen@esa.int
AF: European Space Agency - ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1, Noordwijk, 2200 AG
Netherlands
AU: Jackson, T J
EM: tjackson@hydrolab.arsusda.gov
AF: USDA-ARS Hydrology and Remote Sensing Lab, Bg. 007 BARC-West
10300 Baltimore Avenue, Beltsville, MD 20705-2350
United States
AU: Entekhabi, D
EM: darae@mit.edu
AF: Massachussetts Institute of Technology, Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory, 48-331
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 1-290, Cambridge, Ma 02139-4307
United States
AU: Kerr, Y H
EM: yann.Kerr@cesbio.cnes.fr
AF: CESBIO, 19 Ave. E. Belin, Toulouse, 31055
France
AB:
Soil moisture is more and more recognized by the international scientific community as a key variable in the description of
hydrospheric processes (IGOS-P IGWCO 2004) and is recognized by the GCOS community as an emerging essential climatic variable
(ECV) (GCOS, 2004). The need for a monitoring system in the terrestrial domain to measure soil moisture is therefore of
increasing importance. The monitoring from space borne systems will enable global coverage but to be of real value these data
need to be validated properly over large domains and longer time spans.
Currently no global network exists of in-situ soil moisture measurements and soil moisture is only routinely measured in
certain basins and areas in the world. The most complete collection of in situ soil moisture measurements, mostly
gravimetric, is in the Global Soil Moisture Data bank (GSMDB) (Robock et al., 2000) and data from this database are
frequently used for model validation purposes. The GSMDB data are retrospective in nature and new data come available with a
time lag. Hence, these data are less usefull for validation purposes of new earth observation data.
To establish a valuable global network the measurements needs to be congruent of nature to avoid cross calibration and data
interpretation issues. Establishing and maintaining such a network needs considerable funding. Organisations that work in the
area of hydrology and hydrometeorological measurements need to be aware of the importance and value of such measurements.
Within this presentation an overview will be given of the rationale of the global in-situ measurement network, the envisaged
measurement protocol and the funding opportunities and possibilities
References
[1] GCOS, 2004. Implementation Plan for the Global Observing System for Climate in Support of the UNFCC. WMO, OIC of UNESCO,
UNEP and ICSU.
[2] IGOS-P IGWCO, 2004. The Integrated Global Water Cycle Observations theme of the Integrated Global Observing Strategy for
the Monitoring of our Environment from Space and from Earth.
[3] Robock, A., K. Ya. Vinnikov, G. Srinivasa, J.K. Entin, S.E. Hollinger, N.A. Speranskaya, S. Liu and A. Namkhai, 2000. The
global soil moisture data bank. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 81, 1281-1299
DE: 1800 HYDROLOGY
DE: 1848 Monitoring networks
DE: 1855 Remote sensing (1640)
DE: 1866 Soil moisture
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005